The
German composer of Flemish ancestry. He is the first composer who never had an
official position during his adult life. For him, music was not merely a means
for self-expression but it was also a moral and ethical power. His first
published work was a set of nine Variations on a March by Dresser for piano
(WoO63, 1782/3, Mannheim). The Cantata on the Death of Emperor Joseph II
(WoO87, 1790) is the beginning of a new and highly productive phase in
Beethoven's life as a composer. It is one of the extraordinary leaps in
Beethoven's creative powers similar to those like the Eroica (1803) and
the Hammerklavier sonata (1817/8). His Opus 1 was published in 1795. His
lifetime covers the transition from the Classical to Romantic period. The
balance between form and emotion he achieved in his music makes him a more
Classical period composer. The song cycle An die ferne Geliebte (1816)
and the Sonatas Op.102 (cello) and Op.101 (piano) (1815) opened the door for
Romanticism for Beethoven. With the last quartets of Beethoven, music enters
into the Romantic period. Throughout his career, he repeatedly bid farewell to
the Classical tradition but never said a firm goodbye. His last complete
composition, the String Quartet in F, Op.135 is the most Haydnesque of the last
quartets. Beethoven links the classic feeling of Mozart and Haydn to the
romantic freedom of imagination. His music is often described as larger
than life. Sometimes, as Stravinsky pointed out, the message in his music is
greater than the music itself. After he died, his most profound influence on
the following generation was in changing the role of composer in the society.
He was the first successful freelance composer in Vienna. The old style
composer working for Church or aristocracy was replaced by a freelance artist
producing work for his own artistic needs and earning a living through
publication and performance of his own works. His another achievement was to
raise the instrumental music to the highest plane. Especially the symphony and
quartet reached their peak. This situation caused extreme difficulty for the
younger composer to write in these mediums. The most obvious example is the age
Brahms 'eventually' published his first symphony and string quartet.

His creative life is usually divided into three periods

1. First period - establishment as a major composer (till
1802): His early (Bonn) works show the signs of Mannheim preoccupation with extremes
of piano and forte. This remained a fundamental element in Beethoven's
music. The sudden pianos, the unexpected outbursts, the wide leaping
arpeggio figures known as 'Mannheim rockets' are central to his musical
vocabulary and helped him to liberate instrumental music from its dependence on
vocal style. The sharp conflicts of mood that characterize the sonatas of CPE
Bach appear much more powerfully in Beethoven. The Piano Sonata Op.31/3 has a
non-tonic opening, rich harmonies, and scherzo-like slow movement with sforzandi
in unexpected places. His piano writing was more dynamic than melodic. His
first period compositions are mainly for the piano, alone or with other
instruments (important exceptions are: String Trios Opp.3 & 9, String
Quartets Op.18, and the First Symphony). During the first period, his art kept
closely within the bounds of eighteenth century technique and ideas. He was
more a performer -a pianist- than a composer in the first period. The major
terminal works are: the Spring Sonata for Piano and Violin, Op.24, the Kreutzer
Sonata, Op.47, Symphony No.1, and Piano Sonata in D, Op.28. The typical
features of this period's works are expansion in form (long and
polythematic expositions), long and lyrical slow movements, contrasted
dynamics and improvisatory writing for the piano. C minor is a
favorite key in this period (the Pathetique, Piano Concerto No.3).

2. Middle -heroic- period (1803-12): This period starts with
the Eroica which is a landmark in Beethoven's musical development, and
ends with the Emperor Concerto and the Egmont Overture. Most of
the works were his masterworks, including Piano Sonata Op.57 (Appassionato),
Piano Concerto in G No.4 (Op.58), String Quartets Op.59 (Razumovsky),
Symphony No.4 (Op.60), Violin Concerto in D (Op.61). The most heroic of
his works, Fidelio, also belongs to this period. In the Piano Concerto
No.4, the improvisatory writing was more marked than the first period.
He started to depart from the norm in this period. Structural innovations
included the Eroica, the Moonlight sonata (Op.27/2), the Fourth
and Fifth Piano Concertos. In sonata form movements, the exposition is now
shorter and the development and coda are longer. The third movements are now
always a scherzo with unexpected accents and syncopations. Slow
movements became shorter and finales gained more weight. His most accessible
works are from this period.

3. Last period (1813-27): The last period works are a mere
fraction of his total output, but, they have a density of musical thought
surpassing anything that he had composed before. Growing concentration of
musical thought is combined with a wider range of harmony and texture. The
final period of Beethoven musical life starts with Op.102 Cello Sonatas and
Op.101 Piano Sonata (1815/6). His last five Piano Sonatas and String Quartets,
best Bagatelles, The Diabelli variations, the Missa Solemnis and
Symphony No.9 were written almost in the final decade of his life. Lyricism
is one feature of this period which became evident with Piano Sonatas Opp.90
& 101, and Cello Sonata Op.102/1. Longyear calls this period Beethoven's
contrapuntal period. Several features characterize most of his mature works:
increased use of counterpoint (fugues in the finales of Cello Sonata
Op.102/2, Piano Sonatas Opp.101, 106 'Hammerklavier', 109, 110 and String
Quartet Op.130 (Grosse Fuge); the first movements of String Quartet Op.131,
Piano Sonatas Op.106 and 111; the overture Die Weihe des Hauses, Missa
Solemnis, Diabelli Variations, first, second and last movements of
Symphony No.9); avoidance of obvious dominant effects; preoccupation
with (harmonically controlled) Variations (finale of Piano Sonatas Op.
109 and 111, Diabelli Variations, third and last movements of Symphony
No.9, middle movements of String Quartets Op.127, 131, 132 and
135), inclusion of recitative in an instrumental work (finale of
Piano Sonata Op.110, Choral Fantasy Op. 80, finale of Symphony No.9, third
movement of String Quartet Op.131), use of modality (Lydian mode in the
third movement of String Quartet Op.132), programmatic elements
(Cavatina in String Quartet Op.130, Song of a Convalescent's Thanksgiving to
God in String Quartet Op.132), finale-oriented pieces (Symphony No.9,
String Quartet Op.131), unusual number of movements (two in Piano Sonata
Op.111, six in String Quartet Op.130, seven in String Quartet Op.131), together
with weakening of the sense of discrete and closed movements, tendency
to use simple melodies like folk tunes, nursery rhymes, increasing use
of flat submediant as relaxation in slow movements (the A major slow
movement of String Quartet in C# minor, Op.131; String Quartet, Op.135; the
classic example being the Ab major slow movement of Symphony No.5 in C
minor). It is not rare that in this period, Beethoven combines an extremely
slow tempo with a highly ornate texture and the simplest of harmonies (second
movement of Piano Sonata Op.111). It is in this period that Beethoven
overwhelmed the limits of Classical form in his sonata form movements -a
process started with the Eroica- by blurring the demarcations between
sections and theme groups and in creating huge structures (as in the Razumovsky
Quartet No.1, the Hammerklavier Sonata and Symphony No.9; interestingly
No.8 is just the opposite in this respect which also has a Minuet instead of
Scherzo which make it very Classical). It is also notable that there are
frequent tempo and key changes in such movements (the most typical example is
the first movement of String Quartet in Bb Op.130 in which there are
sixteen tempo and six key changes). Fusion of forms is another feature
of the last period. The first movement of the last Piano Sonata Op.111 is a
profound fusion of the contradictory principles of sonata and fugue. String
quartet is the most essential medium of Beethoven's last period, as the piano
was of his first, and the symphony orchestra of his middle period. Finally, his
last period is when he best achieved the integration of highly contrasting
ideas in one piece. There is no better example of this than the String Quartet
in C# minor, Op.131 in his total output. He uses seven movements in six distinct
keys, changes the tempo 31 times and the result is still his most unified
piece.

The
last period of Beethoven's life should be considered in the light of the
following facts: his total deafness after 1819, his subsequent isolation from
outside world, thus increased importance of his inner world, his permanently
failed attempts in having a relationship with a woman, social and political
situation in Vienna after 1815 (Biedermeier's Vienna), his difficulties about
his nephew Karl, the disturbance of Austrian finances owing to the wars, and
the Rossini fever in Vienna which influenced Beethoven's popularity. It was
clear that he had to make necessary adjustments in his musical language and
expression. His formal innovations seem to be a result of these factors. The
freedom of form he was striving in the last Piano Sonatas was fully attained in
the last String Quartets.

Personal fingerprints

He
usually sticks with diatonic, triadic simplicity. Most of the themes
have derived from the tonic triad. Thematic variety and lyricism of some of his
themes brings Beethoven closer to Mozart (than Haydn). This is most obvious in
the Septet, Eroica and the first Razumovsky quartet. Emphatic
tonal disjunction is an essential element of Beethovenís musical
vocabulary. He juxtaposes unrelated tonal areas without any preparation. Haydn
used remote keys unprepared in the beginning of development and so was
Beethoven. Although his great contemporaries used unrelated keys in successive
movements (as in Haydn's last Piano Sonata in Eb H.52 which has a second
movement in E) or in trios or their minuets, neither Mozart nor Haydn assigned
a remote key an essential function within the unity of a continuous and
organized movement as Beethoven did (incidentally this is a very Schubertian
feature). Examples of this can be seen in the Egmont overture when he
suddenly switches to A major from Ab major in b.91/2. He does the same
in the String Quartet Op.131 where he moves to D major (second movement) from
C# minor (first movement) without a break between the movements. In the first
movement of String Quartet Op.18, No.1, the exposition finishes in C major and
the development continues in A major. Four bars later another big leap, this
time to Bb, follows. In the opening ritornello of Piano Concerto No.2 in
Bb, he moves to Db without modulating. Similarly, at the end of
the fifth variation in the finale of Symphony No.9, he moves from A major
(dominant of the tonic) to F major (dominant of the new key, Bb). The
first three songs of the song cycle are in Eb, G and Ab; between
them there is hardly any preparation for the next key, especially remarkable
when moving from G to the Neapolitan key Ab.

Beethoven
is one of the supreme masters of long-range handling of harmony. Not
keys but key-relationships are an important source of harmonic color effects in
his music. Moving from a dominant seventh to a chord on the flat submediant
is an established resource Beethoven uses for creating surprise (In Fidelio,
b.49-50 of Florestan's Aria; b.333 of the first movement of the Piano Concerto
No.2 in Bb; b.217-218 of the first movement of the Piano Sonata Op.2/3).
He frequently uses flat-submediant as the key of the slow movement (Symphony
No.5, String Quartets Opp.131 & 135). The whole Symphony No.7 is obsessed
with the contrast between tonic (A) and flat submediant (F) / flat mediant (C).
The tonality of the Piano Sonata in F minor, Op.57 (Appassionato) frequently
veers to the flat submediant but even more significantly to the flat supertonic
(Neapolitan key). He even used sharp-submediant as the key of a slow movement
(in the String Quartet Op.95 in F minor, the slow movement is in D
major). Perhaps the most personal mark of Beethoven in his music is the
consistent use of third relationships. The first movement of
String Quartet in Bb Op.130 contains six key changes ranging from six
flats (Gb major) to two sharps (D major); these two keys are the flat
submediant and the major mediant of the in the Bb major scale. He uses
this intervallic relationship to create unity in An die ferne Geliebte.
Both in this song cycle and in the String Quartet in C# minor, Op.131, the keys
used follow a circle-of-thirds (Ab, C, Eb, G in the song cycle;
B, D, [F#], A, C#, E, G# in the Quartet). In the development of the Scherzo of
Symphony No.9, tonal motions are in thirds: D, B, G, Eb, C, Ab,
F, Db, Bb, Gb, Eb,Cb, Ab [G#], E, C#
and A. The Mass in C has a tonal plan based on mediant (E)
and submediant (A). Mass in C is one of the works in C major that prominent use
of the mediant E major is made (like the Piano Sonatas Opp.2/3 and 53; Leonore
Overtures No.2 and 3).

Rhythmic
vitality in Beethoven's music is unmatched. He creates this with his motifs,
the use of harmonies, anacrusis, syncopations, offbeat accents and the masterly
use of dynamics. For example, the famous turn motif of String Quartet No.18/1
appears in the development on different beats of the bar. The best examples of
the typical rhythmic drive in symphonies are the first movement of the Eroica
and the whole Symphony No.7. The relentless rhythmic drive of Brahms's Symphony
No.1 is believed to be a result of a Beethovenian model he adopted for this
symphony. Sudden changes in dynamics are a typical feature in Beethoven's
music. In particular, the return of quiet main themes fortissimo at
recapitulation is worth noting. He is also very good in dramatic use of
silence.

He
likes to use inversions of chords frequently, especially the dominant
seventh; and contrary motion in thirds even at the risk of dissonance.
Sometimes, he presents more music in recapitulation than in the
exposition (as b.167-173 of the first movement of Waldstein Sonata;
Piano Sonata Op.111; the first movement of the String Quartets Opp.59/2 &
130; and the last movement of the String Quartet Op.131). Especially in his
middle-period, Beethoven presents a harmonic puzzle or instability at
the outset of a piece. From the very first published work (Dresser's March,
WoO63), C minor was a key Beethoven favored a lot (Piano Trios, Op.1/3;
String Trio, Op.9/3; Piano Sonata, Op.10/1; Pathetique Sonata, Op.13;
String Quartet, Op.18/4; Piano Concerto No.3, Op.37; Coriolanus Overture,
Op.62; Symphony No.5, Op.67; first movement of the final Piano Sonata, Op.111).
With Beethoven C minor is usually the key for drama and tension. He
chose this key for monumental tragic-heroic works (like the Funeral Cantata WoO
87 and the principal section of the Funeral March of the Eroica). He
attached supreme suffering to F minor (Fidelio, Egmont)
and heroic emotion to Eb major (the Eroica, Emperor).

Towards
the end of his life the use of trills came to have a significant importance.
This started with the last movement of the Piano Sonata in E minor, Op.90. The
best example of expressive trills can be found in the last variation of the
last movement of the last Piano Sonata (Op.111). The slow movement of the
String Quartet in C# minor, Op.131 (the beginning of the coda) is also very
rich in trills.

Beethoven's
fondness of countryside is well-known. His tendency to write pastoral music
culminated in the Pastoral Symphony in 1808. He also wrote less known
music with pastoral connotations. His most pastoral composition written before
the Symphony was a song published in 1804. Der Wachtelschlag (WoO 129)
in F major is about a quail (also featured in the Symphony). There is also a
Pastoral in the ballet music Prometheus (1800-1). This is in C major
with 6/8 meter and uses almost exclusively tonic and dominant harmony. The
Piano Sonata in D (Op.28) has been nicknamed Pastoral by an English
publisher. This is because of the extended tonic pedal in the opening theme and
in the (6/8) finale. It was not Beethoven's idea to call it Pastoral. Another
pastoral sounding piece by Beethoven is a Bagatelle in F major from the Op.33
set (1802). The musical features of the Symphony No.6 that give it a pastoral
character can be listed as follows: the key of F major and the extensive use of
woodwind, especially oboe which has originated from the shawm (a shepherd's
instrument); the use of fast triple (3/4), compound duple (6/8) and compound
quadruple (12/8) time in the third, last and second movements, respectively
(but not Siciliana rhythm); widespread use of pedal basses, simple diatonic
harmonies (mainly tonic-dominant) avoiding minor key modulations and chromatic
chords; upper parts moving in thirds; bird-song imitations; second movement in
subdominant; significant repetition; playing down the dramatic features of
sonata form in the first two movements (like the lack of dominant preparation
before recapitulation in the first movement) and lack of sudden dynamic
changes.

Beethoven's
vocal works are often underestimated. More than 40% of his Bonn works are for
voice. This proportion is very similarly represented in his total 600 works.
His Lieder compare favorably with those of his contemporaries, although, as
with most pre-Romantic Lieder, few have entered the modern repertory. Beethoven
changed the minuet to scherzo in his compositions. The scherzo is a less
graceful and more violent minuet and in much more rapid triple-meter. The
rhythm of Beethoven's scherzos is usually heard as a three-in-one beat. In slow
movements, like Haydn, he uses double variation form frequently. The most
typical example is Symphony No.5: the slow movement in variation form has two
themes. The rhythm of the second corresponds to the rhythm of the 'fate
knocking on the door' theme. The slow movements of Symphony No.4 & No.9 and
String Quartet Op. 132 'Song of a Convalescent's Thanksgiving to God' are also
in double variation form. His interest in the variation form is well-known.
Towards the end of his life, this interest became more than just elaborating a
theme. As in the Diabelli Variations (Op.120), he dissects the theme to
discover new meanings in it. He wrote 32 variations on a theme by Diabelli
(eight groups of four variations each one following the theme's eight four-bar
phrases). Sometimes the theme itself becomes unrecognizable. From the middle
period onwards, his large scale works represent triumph over threat or
adversity best seen in Symphony No.5 (also in Fidelio and the Adagio of
the first Razumovsky Quartet, Op.59). Even his darkest music usually
ends happily the rare exceptions being the Pathetique and the String Quartet in
C# minor, Op.131.

Structural innovations

From
his Opus 1, Beethoven started to make his mark on classical style. He is best
remembered for changing the minuet to scherzo. He even placed the scherzo as
the second movement in Symphony No.9. From the beginning, he increased the
number of movements to four in classical sonata (his first Bonn sonatas have
four movements). Later on, however, he also brought flexibility to the number
of movements and indeed his last Piano Sonata (Op.111) has only two movements
(after him, Liszt brought it down to one in his Sonata in B minor). The slow
introduction to a symphony was already known from the examples of Mozart and
Haydn but he did the same in his Piano Sonatas (Piano Sonata in F minor (1783),
WoO 47; the Pathetique). He revolutionized the symphonic concept.
The turning point in the history of symphony is the Eroica. It has an
unprecedented length, which was heralded in Symphony No.2, and the expansion of
sonata form in the first movement must have been hard to believe for his
contemporaries. The richness in themes and tonality, extraordinary development
which starts from the beginning and extended coda as a second development are
the main features of the first movement of the Eroica. He also widened
the scope of the piano sonata to symphonic proportions with the Waldstein, Appassionato and Hammerklavier sonatas.
With his Op.18 String Quartets (No.5-6) and Opp.26, 27/1-2 and 31/3 Piano
Sonatas (all from 1800-1802), a tendency towards shifting the weight of a
multi-movement piece to the end emerged. He applied the same to the symphony
from the Eroica onwards. This trend culminated in the choral finale in
No.9. In No.6, he used five movements as opposed to the norm of four movements
and as he had done in No.5, he joined the last three movements together (in his
penultimate String Quartet in C# minor, all seven movements are played without
a break). Having exhausted the tools of the classical style, he started to
combine them. This is first seen in the fusion of forms in his music: in
Op.18/4, he combined the fugue and sonata form in the second movement; in the
finale of the Eroica, variation and fugue are combined; in the finale of the Pastoral
symphony, the rondo theme is varied at each return; in the last movement of
Piano Sonata, Op.111, the section after variation 4 may be seen either as an
extended coda or as two further variations surrounded by transitional material
and ending with a coda. His innovations in the use of sonata form are discussed
in the next section. See also Evolution of Symphony and
the Finale Problem after Beethoven.

Use of sonata form

As
a Classical Period composer, he used sonata form in first movements of most of
his works. All four movements of the String Quartet in F major Op.59/1 (Razumovsky)
are cast in sonata form. He sometimes used sonata form in last movements (Piano
Sonatas Op.10/1 and Op.27/2; String Quartets Op.18/5, and Op.131 -the only
sonata form movement is the last movement in this quartet). He expanded
the sonata form movements to massive dimensions as in the first movements of
Symphonies No.3 & 9. He generally observes the sonata principle. Sometimes
his second subjects are in unexpected keys or have more than one tonality but
the whole group usually establishes one single key and they are recapitulated
in the tonic (or tonic major). Not infrequently, he approaches the second
subject through an intermediary key (like from F to C through Ab in
String Quartet Op.18/1). Some exceptions violating the conventions of Classical
sonata principle are: the second subject of Symphony No.1 in C is recapitulated
in the subdominant (F); in the Piano Sonata, Op.10/1 (first movement), the
recapitulation of the second subject is also in the subdominant and
moves to the tonic minor (there are deviations from the sonata principle in all
three sonatas in this set); in the Pathetique Sonata (C minor), the
second subject is in Eb minor (mediant minor) and first recapitulated in
the subdominant before reaching the home key; the Egmont overture
(in F minor, Op.84) in which the second subject is in the relative major (Ab)
and recapitulated in the submediant key (Db); also in String Quartet in
F minor Op.95, the second subject is first recapitulated in Db and then
in F major; in the first movement of Symphony No.9 (in D minor), the second
subject is in the submediant (Bb) and is recapitulated in F# minor (a
third above the tonic); in the Piano Trio, Op.70/2 (finale), a double
recapitulation is the outcome of an unusual key structure which begins with the
exposition; in the finale of the String Quartet in C# minor, Op.131, the finale
is in sonata form and its second subject is recapitulated in the remote key, D
major (flat supertonic); in Piano Sonata in C Op.53 (Waldstein), the
second subject is in E and recapitulated first in A and then reaches the tonic,
later on in the coda it turns up again fully in tonic.

Other
examples of the use of remote keys (usually a third relationship to the tonic)
for the second subjects in sonata form movements: the flat submediant (Piano
Sonata, Op.111; String Quartet in Bb, Op.130); the mediant major (Waldstein);
the submediant major (String Quintet in C, Op.29; Archduke Trio in Bb,
Op.97; Hammerklavier Sonata in Bb, Op.106); the submediant
(String Quartet in F minor, Op.95); the mediant (Sonata in G, Op.31/1) in which
the second subject begins in the mediant (B) major but most of the rest of the second
group is in B minor. In the Scherzo of Symphony No.9 in D minor, the second
subject is in C major (flat-seventh). In the late period, it is rare to see the
second subject in dominant.

One
of the hallmarks of Beethoven's way with sonata form is his love of
well-contrasted first and second subjects. This was not unusual in the
Classical period. The first and second subject groups of the first movement of
the Eroica and Egmont are good examples of contrasting subjects
in a sonata form movement (rhythmic/masculine vs lyrical/feminine). The D major
- B minor key relationship was one of his favorite ones (Pastoral sonata
Op.28, finale of Symphony No.2). He also used the specific juxtaposition of D
major and Bb major in his works (introduction of Symphony No.2, the
first orchestral tutti of the Violin Concerto, the first turn towards the
second thematic area in Archduke Trio Op.97, the first theme of the
third movement of Symphony No.9). He is very fond of motivic development and he
does it very concisely. He uses one or two small motives to construct a whole
movement. In the first and last movements of piano sonata Op.10/3, he builds
large structures from motifs of just a few notes. His dominant preparations are
sometimes massive (as in the Pathetique sonata) and the recapitulation
comes back after a long expectation and usually in fortissimo. On the
other hand, the development section of the Scherzo of Symphony No.9 merges into
the recapitulation without any dominant harmony and, the first movement of the Pastoral
Symphony does not have any dominant pedal at the end of the development. The
coda is generally a further development section (first movement of the Eroica).
Another common procedure in Beethoven's sonata form movements is that a
cadential phrase from the first theme ends the exposition and opens the
development (String Quartet in G, Op.18/2).

The
coda was no more than a summing up in most Classical works before Beethoven.
There were only a few grand codas (as in Haydn's Symphony No.44, Mozart's large
instrumental works in C major and C minor). Beethoven raised the coda to the
status of a second development section. His largest codas are those in the
finale of Trio Op.97 (157 of 410 bars), Symphonies No.3 (first movement), No.5
(finale), No.8 (finale; 236 of 502 bars), and in the finale of String Quartet
Op.131 (125 of 388 bars).

Thematic links in Beethoven's works

The
main theme of the Eroica may have been inspired from the Prometheus
theme. The new theme that appears in b.284 of the first movement seems to have
been derived from the first and second subjects. The funeral march theme in C
minor is the retrograde derivative of the main theme of the first movement. The
horn theme in the Trio is an anagram of the main theme (incl. the Db).
In Symphony No.5, the theme of the Scherzo is related rhythmically to the
opening of the work. The Scherzo theme appears in the finale. In No.9, the
themes of the first three movements are quoted in the beginning of the last
movement. The Ode to Joy theme is foreshadowed all the way through in the
symphony. An example of the intervallic relationship as a means of
creating unity appears in the song cycle An die ferne Geliebte. The
interval sixth and its inversion the third are used consistently in melodically
important material throughout. Semitonic interval is used as a unifying agent
in Symphony No.2 and String Quartet in C# minor. In the Pathetique
sonata, the rondo theme is related to the second subject of the first movement.
He uses a rhythmic motive to unite all sections in the first movement of
Symphony No.4. All his last five string quartets are united by the same pitch
relationships in their themes (most use the top half of the minor scale) and
show some signs of key relationships as a whole. As in the Eroica and Symphony
No.5, the themes of different movements of the String Quartet in C# minor
(Op.131) are interrelated. As an example, the theme of the last movement in
sonata form is an interversion of the first movement's fugal subject.

Orchestration in Beethoven's work

Beethoven
was not interested in introducing novelties for their own sake. He follows the
conventions of Classical period orchestration with slight expansion. He shared
his contemporaries' taste for generally expanding the use of woodwind and
brass. He used the Classical period orchestration in most of his orchestral
music: double woodwind (pairs of flutes, oboes, clarinets, and bassoons), pairs
of horns, trumpets, timpani and the standard strings (first violins, second
violins, violas, cellos, and double basses). Typical Beethovenian touches in
his scores are the sudden and unexpected fortes and pianos as well as sudden
silences. Adam Carse comments on examples of bad balances in orchestration in
several of his symphonies as a result of strings, or strings or brass,
overpowering the essential matter played by the wood-wind in loud passages. In
his first symphony, clarinets are still only harmony or tutti instruments but
gradually gain importance and are given solo parts from the Eroica
onwards. His horn parts also show gradual change. The number of stopped notes
increased starting with the Eroica. He used three horns in the Eroica
and Fidelio (1805) and four in Symphony No.9. He exploited the
possibilities of the brass group very little. The timpani, however, enjoyed
prominence and even thematic importance (as in the Scherzo of Symphony No.9)
more than ever before in Beethoven's music. Another novel use of the timpani
was tuning them in the extended interval of octaves in the same Scherzo (as
well as in the finale of Symphony No.8), and in the interval of diminished
fifth in Florestan's F minor aria in Fidelio. From his middle period
onwards, he was getting impatient with the instrumental technique of his time.
His demands on the horn players in the Eroica, Fidelio, Symphony
No.9 (fourth horn), and on the string bass players in the third movement of
Symphony No.5 were probably a little too much at the time.

Romantic tendencies in Beethoven's music

Both
Classical and Romantic tendencies co-exist in Beethoven's music. In the case of
Beethoven at least, it would be more appropriate to see Classicism and
Romanticism as concurrent tendencies rather than consecutive periods. When
exhausted the tools of the Classical style, Beethoven turned to new ways of
expression and new kinds of content. In contrast to Romantics, Beethoven found
these in his own imagination. The great interest taken by many Romantic
composers in their national heritage was a characteristic of Beethoven too. His
interest in folk songs is very well known not only because of the arrangements
he made for British and Irish folk songs, but also because he wrote a lot of
German Dances. As his expressive purposes changed, he sometimes found it necessary
to increase the length of single movements as in the Eroica, Symphony
No.9, and String Quartets Opp.130 & 131. He also used the cyclical form (An
die ferne Geliebte song cycle). Like his follower Romantic composers would
do, he turned to the past in search of new expressive means. The amount of
fugal writing increased in his later works. The slow movement of the A minor
quartet (Op.132) bears the superscript 'Song of a Convalescent's Thanksgiving
... in the Lydian mode'. The overture to the Consecration of the House
resembles the French overture type. He also created the short, lyrical piano
pieces called bagatelles. He provided examples for the traits often described
as Romantic: Program music (Pastoral Symphony), Extra-musical
suggestions (Eroica, Pastoral Symphony, Symphonies No.5 and 9,
Piano Sonata Op.81a Les Adieux), longing for the unattainable (An die
ferne Geliebte), finishing minor key works with major mode movements
(Symphonies No.5 and 9; Piano Sonatas Opp.90 & 111; String Quartet Op.95)
[incidentally, the opposite of this does not occur in Beethoven's music but
there are later examples: Mendelssohn's Italian Symphony in A and
Brahms's Trio in B, Op.8], merging of separate movements into a single span
(Symphonies No.5 and 6; Piano Concerto No.5 'Emperor'; Piano Sonata
Op.111 'No.32'), tonal innovations in sonata form-movements (in Appassionato
in F minor, the second subject is both in Ab minor and Ab major;
in the Scherzo of the Eroica, the second subject is recapitulated in the
dominant first and then in the tonic; in the finale of String Quartet in C#
minor, Op.131, the second subject is in relative major (E) and recapitulated in
the Neapolitan key 'D major'). This Quartet (Op.131) is highly structured and
in this sense Classical. Whatever innovations, modifications and revolutions he
has brought into music, he never forgot to keep the balance and order. He
appears to have remained a Classical composer throughout his life, but the
instinctive imagination Beethoven shows for the form, texture and tonality is
more characteristic of Romantics. See also Romantic Music.

Beethoven's influence

During
the nineteenth century, those composers not influenced by Beethoven were the
exception rather than the rule. The model of Beethoven was a prototype for the
Romantic artist as he was not conservative in creativity and, tried new ways in
expression and communication with no recognition of boundary. His life style
and humanistic opinions also provided new models for the Romantics. Beethovenís
legacy was immensely rich and varied. Many of the following composers could not
avoid his influence. His influence made especially symphonic writing a
difficult task for his followers. From the Eroica onwards, Beethoven
redefined the concept of symphony. He created new concepts in symphonic
writing: the metaphysical, exemplified by the heroic-tragic (funeral march from
the Eroica, the first movements of Symphonies No.5 and 9) and the
heroic-victorious (first movement of the Eroica, last movement of No.5,
the Emperor); the down-to-earth (the Pastoral); concision and
neatness (Symphonies No.4 and 8); expansiveness (the Eroica, Symphony
No.9); music with a message (the Eroica, Symphonies No.5 and 9); or still
abstract music (Symphonies No.4 and 8) were the new and wide-ranging elements
in the new symphonic style as defined by Beethoven. In the new style, the
weight shifted to the end (to the finale) and, the concentrated motivic
development and long-range tonal planning became the norm. His immediate German
successors Schumann and Mendelssohn were undoubtedly Romantic composers but in
their symphonies it was Beethoven the Classic to whom they owed most.

As
a brief summary, his influence on other composers are as follows: Schubert:
the expansive dimension of his own No.9 (the Great), similarity of the
rhythm in the opening of the Wanderer to Beethovenís Hammerklavier;
Schumann: the adoption of the song cycle as a model, the quotation of
the closing song of An die ferne Geliebte in his Piano Fantasy Op.17,
placing of the scherzo as the second movement in his Second Symphony, thematic
cross-references and the lack of breaks between movements in the Fourth
Symphony (as in Beethovenís No.5 and 9, and No.5 and 6, respectively), thematic
cross-links also in the first movement of the Piano Concerto; Mendelssohn:
the parallels between his String Quartet Op.80 in F minor and Beethovenís F
minor Quartet Op.95, his Piano Sonata Op.6 and Beethovenís Sonatas Opp.90 &
101, choral finale in Symphony No.2, the similarity of the Andante con moto
in D minor from the Italian Symphony to the Allegretto of
Beethoven's No.7, the Adagio of the Scottish Symphony has
similarities to the Harp Quartet Op.74, the connection of the first
two movements of the Violin Concerto by a single bassoon note modeled on the Emperor;
Berlioz: Programmatic content and thematic transformation in the
symphonies Symphonie fantastique and Romeo and Juliette, also
chorus in the finale of Romeo and Juliette; Liszt: inspiration
from the Egmont and Leonora Overtures No.2 and 3 to write his 13
Symphonic Poems, programmatic symphonies (Dante and Faust) and
use of chorus in the finale of them, thematic transformation in Faust
(similar to the transformation of the slow introduction theme in the Pathetique),
Piano Sonata in B runs without a break; Brahms: the relentless rhythmic
drive, beautiful breadth of melodies, originality of modulations, dramatic
treatment of the main structural landmarks and particular expressive content in
Symphony No.1 (1876) which was dubbed 'The Tenth', the tonal relationships
between the movements of this Symphony is another reminder of Beethoven (and
Schubert): they are separated from each other by a major third (C minor, E
major, Ab major, C minor), the symphonic nature of Piano Concerto
No.1 in D minor (1859) and the structure of its rondo (aspired from Beethovenís
Piano Concerto No.3), his second Piano Concerto in Bb (1881) was even
called 'a symphony with obbligato piano', the rhythmic similarity of the
opening theme of his Piano Sonata No.1 (1853) to the Hammerklavierís first
theme and the reference to Bb near the opening of a C major sonata
movement (similar to Waldstein), particular emphasis on this Bb
as Beethoven did the same for G in the first movement of String Quartet Op.59/1
and D and A in the whole of Op.131, similarities of his Violin Concerto and
Double Concerto to Beethovenís Violin Concerto (1878) and Triple Concerto
(1887), the intervallic contour of the first theme using descending thirds (cf.
Hammerklavier) and dual tonality of the second subject in B minor and
major (cf. Appassionato Op.57 and Sonata in G Op.31/1) in the Fourth
symphony, the freedom he allowed himself in variation writing can be traced
back to Beethoven, his addition of a fourth movement in his second Piano
Concerto may have been inspired from Beethoven's similar innovation in piano
sonata; Bruckner: Hugely expansive symphonies, simplicity of motifs and
creating great structures from these simple motifs (Urmotive), the use of the
first movement of Beethovenís No.9 as a model in many symphonies (especially in
his Third Symphony, also the Eighth starts with a theme rhythmically identical
to the opening of Beethoven's No.9), use of the slow movement of No.9 as a
model for some his symphonic slow movements (especially the last three), in the
finale of his Symphony No.5, themes from the earlier movements re-appear and
alternate with new themes and they altogether become the first subject proper; Mahler:
The resemblance of the Resurrection March in his Second Symphony to the march
episode in the finale of Beethoven's No.9, extreme similarity of the opening of
the third movement of the Fourth Symphony to the quartet from Act 1 of Fidelio,
the opening of the Adagio finale of Mahler's Third Symphony resembles to the Lento
assai from the String Quartet Op.135 and the second part of the main theme
from Marcia funebre of the Eroica; Wagner: He
considered himself as the successor of Bach of Beethoven. His early instrumental
works are based on Beethovenian models. Wagner aspired to compose symphonic
opera. He at the end infused opera with Beethovenís symphonism. He combined
literary drama and the Beethovenian symphony in musical drama. Thus, he used
large-scale tonal planning and thematic-motivic working (with more emphasis on
transformation) in his operas; Franck: Apart from finishing his
only Symphony in D minor in major mode, the first phrase of the Grande Piece
Symphonique is related to Muss es sein? (Beethoven's String Quartet
op.135); Martinu himself stated that the Eroica lay behind the musical
language of his Symphony No.3; Bartok: He was a great fan of
Beethovenís last quartets. These quartets formed the inspiration for Bartokís
six mature quartets. No.1 starts with a fugue like Beethovenís Op/131,
intellectual concentration (similar to the finale of the Hammerklavier
and Grosse Fugue) can be seen in the opening of his String Quartet No.4.
A motif only uses semitonic intervals forms the generative nucleus in this quartet;
Tippett: He was impressed with the vitality of the formal process and
the creation of ebb and flow in Beethovenís music. He frequently started with a
sonata-allegro movement and finished with a sonata-rondo in his compositions.
His Symphony No.2, for example, consists of a dramatic sonata-allegro followed
by an expressive slow movement, a vigorous scherzo and a climaxing finale. So
has his String Quartet No.1 a similar structure. He used the model of
Beethovenís String Quartet Op.95 to integrate widely differing material such as
the lyrical opening folk-like theme with a homophonic accompaniment, a fugue
with a chromatic tail into his Concerto for Double String Orchestra. Like the
Hammerklavier and Grosse Fugue, he concluded his String Quartet No.3 and
Symphony No.1 with fugues. Similarities extend to the use of expressive trills
and increased speed of figurations (as in the finale of Beethovenís Op.111) in
his Piano Sonata No.3. He even quoted the alla marcia from the finale of the
Ninth Symphony in the third act of his opera The Midsummer Marriage.
Also in the finale of his Third Symphony, he quotes the opening bars of the
finale of Symphony No.9. If not his music, the humanism Beethoven
pictured so positively in masterpiece after masterpiece will continue to
influence each generation.